Man up, fans of X-COM! [Xenonauts]

[Wingflier]

I think my science team is beginning to get upset with me. I was told to capture an "alien officer" which is supposed to be "easily recognizable" because of its head gear. Unfortunately I think I've gotten a little carried away because "they all look the same to me". If it's got two legs and it squeaks shoot, gas it, or blow it to smithereens.

Just did my first "city assault" mission. Pretty intense I've been enjoying this game so far... Wait. WAIT. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT *goes silent*

[Aklyon]

NC and all the soldier types have various amounts of armor or lack of. Officers have hats and armor.

(Pictures from here, if you want spoilers on the others.)

[keith.lamothe]

I think my science team is beginning to get upset with me.

Judging by the science guy's expression he starts upset with you, and goes from there.

I was told to capture an "alien officer" which is supposed to be "easily recognizable" because of its head gear.

"Which part of that cloud was the headgear, again?"

More seriously, when I started a mission with one it actually popped up a box at the start of the mission explicitly telling me there was an officer on the map and to look for the hat.  When I saw the officer in the UFO it was very, very clear that they'd meant him.

[Wingflier]

Now wait, you mean clear to the science team, clear to the tactical commander, or clear to the grunt with the heavy machine gun mowing down everything that twitches?

*That* is a very important distinction to make

By the way, I have just discovered (spoiler alert) some kind of purple OH MY GOD MONSTER alien that tore my squad member apart because, even after I was given a compelling demonstration of its abilities on an unfortunate civilian, I did not realize that it had a movement range the size of the geoscape map. Whose sick idea was this?

Worse, once it "bred", I realized that I was in a *nasty* situation as it had effectively created 4 targets, all within range of my squad (the original "THING", the "cocoon", and the two more "THINGS" inside of that). Considering that I'm playing Normal/Ironman on my first runthrough, I knew that this had the potential to be catastrophic. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but I had sent two members of my squad off on a recon mission in the other direction. With one member down, and with an absolute necessity that I kill them all in one turn, I started going into panic mode. I was afraid to try gas grenades because well, let's be honest the effectiveness of those is unreliable at best. My rifleman ended up whiffing completely at point blank range. My sniper (highest member of my squad) missed as well, I think the target was too close. I ended up killing the original THING with my Panther, which left my machine gunner to do the rest. To my great relief, he was able to kill all 3 in one barrage. I will never make that mistake again.

[keith.lamothe]

Whose sick idea was this?

The Chryssalid (called Reaper here) goes all the way back to the original.  In both the original and EU the first encounter with said is generally a pants-crapping moment.  And people think I do nasty developer things

In Xenonauts I actually find them easier to deal with, because rather than being very difficult to kill like in the other two, they're fairly fragile here.


Actually, yesterday one of my missions was in arctic-zone soviet territory, some kind of local outpost or whatever.  I saw some dudes in heavy coats walking around, some with shotguns.  Met my first reaper, gunned it down, kept going.  Had an assault squaddie scouting the perimeter of a warehouse-like structure I'd seen a civvie in.  After hitting end-turn during the hidden-movement I heard alien movement, followed by the sound of 3 shotgun blasts, and then the sound of an alien dying.  Later visuals confirmed the species of the victim as Reaper.

In Soviet Russia, the Civilians kill the Aliens.


That dude was pretty hardcore, I'd have told him to get on the chopper and come back to base with us if I could.

[Aklyon]

I knew reapers likely would die to rifles, but I never actually tried that before; Ones within sight of my squad are usually blownup asap.  The original encounter I had with them went rather badly due to my rocketeer being in medbay at the time.

[Wingflier]

You're lucky, all I've ever seen civilians as thus far is cannon fodder, or worse, FOOD for the zombies.

I don't remember the Reaper in EU, which means they only appeared in the very late game, or it didn't make much of an impact.

[keith.lamothe]

I knew reapers likely would die to rifles, but I never actually tried that before; Ones within sight of my squad are usually blownup asap.

Yea, Reapers are kill-it-with-fire targets.

If the science guy ever tells me we need to capture one I'm handing him the stun rod.

[Wingflier]

I knew reapers likely would die to rifles, but I never actually tried that before; Ones within sight of my squad are usually blownup asap.

Yea, Reapers are kill-it-with-fire targets.

If the science guy ever tells me we need to capture one I'm handing him the stun rod.

Oh, ABSOLUTELY. I hoped *THAT* wasn't the target you were trying to capture with your sergeant.

[keith.lamothe]

I knew reapers likely would die to rifles, but I never actually tried that before; Ones within sight of my squad are usually blownup asap.

Yea, Reapers are kill-it-with-fire targets.

If the science guy ever tells me we need to capture one I'm handing him the stun rod.

Oh, ABSOLUTELY. I hoped *THAT* wasn't the target you were trying to capture with your sergeant.

Nah that was an Andron.

I suspect a reaper would have been taken down by 2 direct hits, at least on easy.  But I'm not intending to find out.  Though if one of my soldiers had the guts to melee a Reaper I'd probably need to promote or institutionalize him.

[madcow]

Why must you people tempt me so.

Edit: currently playing dark souls 2 for my "masochistic/trolled by dev needs" but now you are temping me with xenonauts.

[keith.lamothe]

Why must you people tempt me so.

Edit: currently playing dark souls 2 for my "masochistic/trolled by dev needs" but now you are temping me with xenonauts.

Tempting?  No, I'm telling you that you need to play this game

[madcow]

Not sure I could handle the uncontrollable rage of playing xenonauts and dark souls at the same time or back to back.

[Wingflier]

On normal it really hasn't been so bad. I mean in other words, it's no Dark Souls unless you *want* it to be. Perhaps it's like AI War in that way

(I know I'm going to regret this. Prepare to smack yourself, future Adam.)

[Mánagarmr]

You're lucky, all I've ever seen civilians as thus far is cannon fodder, or worse, FOOD for the zombies.

I don't remember the Reaper in EU, which means they only appeared in the very late game, or it didn't make much of an impact.

You mean you never had the pleasure of running across these? Or if you didn't play the original, these?